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Sunday, 5 February 2012

Why is Pink News giving space to a bigot?

Yet again we have religious homophobes trying to justify their bigotry because it comes from a holy book. And Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet jumps through hoops to tell us GBLT folk why we should be accepting of bigotry and why we shouldn’t treat bigots like bigots.

People who want to conform to the Bible should not be condemned as homophobic anymore than critics of religion might be labelled theophobic.

Bullshit. People who are homophobic should be condemned as homophobic. I don’t give a fuck WHY they are homophobic. Someone who views me as a lesser person is a homophobe. Someone who thinks I don’t deserve the same rights and respect, someone who has a low opinion of me just because of who I am – they are a homophobe and not only should they be condemned by anyone who DOESN’T condemn them is also a homophobe.

However, just because I maintain that homosexuality is wrong doesn’t mean I have to go beating the drum about it anymore than I might regularly preach against adultery.

And you think you deserve respect for this, bigot? You think I am a lesser person, that my love is wrong – but that’s ok because you don’t beat the drum about it? You compare my love, my being, my identity with cheating on someone, with betraying someone and you think it’s ok because you don’t’ make a big deal of your prejudice?

there are times when public statements are deemed necessary, such as when same-sex marriages began to become legalised.

Oh so good little bigot you will not wave your hatred flag around except when we try to get equality and justice. So you’ll keep quiet about your hatred so long as we keep in our proper place. You’ll just have to pipe up if we get above ourselves and presume to be equal to your straightness?

when governments were voting with their feet to recognise same-sex marriages, it was only to be expected that moralists and religious leaders would speak out against.

You mean, when we are starting to be treated more like real people, the bigots just can’t stand that and have to speak up and put us back in our place.

A fundamental principle in Judaism, sadly lost on too many extremists today, is to condemn the action, never the person.

Spare me this lie. At least the “extremists” are honest. I am gay. I don’t do gay. You’re condemning me, you’re just putting pretty words around it to try and justify your bigotry. Be honest, stop trying to put a cloak of respectability on your hate.

signed by dozens of leading Orthodox Rabbis across the Jewish world, making perfectly clear the traditional Jewish viewpoint on homosexuality, while also reassuring gay people that they are always welcome into Synagogues and communities.

You mean we can hang around so long as we recognise our place as beneath you and lesser to you. Or we submit to torturous ex-gay conversion. But hey, you made a statement saying that we’re welcome – so it’s ok that we’re lesser, condemned and shamed and not allowed equal rights.

The Bible condemns the act as an abomination, as it does eating bacon.

I can give up bacon quite easily. I cannot stop being who I am. But bigots refuse to see this in their eagerness to justify their bigotry. You put words around it, rabbi, but you are condemning the person. You are condemning us – being gay is not an act.

Chief Rabbi Ralbag should not be relieved of his position for taking a religious stance on a traditional biblical position.

I wouldn’t care if he remained. But I would mark it up as another religion that supports bigotry. Obviously Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet doesn’t care if a gross homophobe is in charge – but then, he’s a gross homophobe himself.

However, his sensitivity, and by extension his ability to reach out to his wider constituency, in endorsing a controversial statement regarding homosexuals, must surely be called into question.

BWAHAHAH! You write this grossly homophobic shit, Rabbi, and then you dare call anyone else “controversial”? Really? Your hypocrisy is stunning and typical. I wonder, how desperate are you to cling to the fact you’re a GOOD homophobe? Is that what helps you sleep at night, being one of the “good” ones. Not being one of them? Well, sorry to burst your bubble, bigot, because you are one of them.

I’m really sick of them pulling this shit and I’m sick of the world treating their bigotry as if it’s ok. For a gay publication like Pink News to decide to give a platform to a homophobe so he can justify to us all why regarding gays as lesser people is ok is sickening. Have we so absorbed homophobia that even our own spaces give platforms to homophobic apologism? That our own news sources give space to homophobes to chide us for being upset by homophobes?

I reject this. I reject any excuses for homophobia. I reject that you can think that being GBLT is wrong and NOT be a bigot. I reject the idea you can think being GBLT is wrong and that be even remotely acceptable.

And I reject that the homophobe Rabbi Yitzchak Schochet has any place writing homophobia apologism for a gay publication. The Rabbi is a bigot and should be ashamed – and Pink News should be doubly ashamed for giving him a platform to justify his prejudice.